John Egbert
John Egbert is one of the main characters in Homestuck. He, according to , hadn't been given a name until his thirteenth birthday; however, this is just a framing mechanism. In the past, he had ended letters with . While originally given the name , the game rejected it and settled for John. John uses an online application known as Pesterchum to communicate with his friends. His chumhandle is . It used to be , but he to avoid the trolls. Oddly, he chose the name ectoBiologist based on by one of the trolls. His title may be a pun on his associated classical element, because interchanging the first and last words produces "breath of air". His web browser of choice is Typheus, who coincidentally is the mate of Echidna, the namesake of Jade's web browser. John's associated Classical element is air, and his Associated Item is oil. Biography Childhood John, travelling by meteor, arrived on Earth as an infant, which the death of their ectobiological mother. They were adopted and raised by their half-brother who took the role of their Dad. At some point during her childhood, Gamzee Makara on John, causing a doll resembling 3x prototyped Jack Noir to appear in their dream room on Prospit. This caused John to write self-depreciating remarks and draw pictures of harlequins on their walls while sleeping, however they were not cognizant of these while awake. Their dad, who was generally supportive of their interests, began showing an interest in harlequins too, in an attempt to bond with John, but failed to realize John's distaste for them. At some point John became friends with Rose, Dave and Jade over the internet. Little is known about this other than Jade John on one of their birthdays. All four would go on to play Sburb together. On , after being by trolls, John changed their Pesterchum handle from to . Sburb The story begins on their birthday, when their copy of Sburb arrives. They an awesome Bunny from their friend Dave. They with Rose as their server. Despite their penchant for video games, they initially do not have a firm grasp on the concepts of Sburb and rarely understand what is going on with some of the more technical commands. However, they later show some more proficiency at playing by the game's rules, and gets the ingenious idea of combining two punched cards to create a new weapon with the Alchemiter. They then make other items based on the same principle. After John with the harlequin doll their father got them for their birthday, the area around their house is hit by a Meteor and engulfed in flames. They the Cruxite Apple and enter The Medium, sparing their house from absolute destruction by suspending it on a pillar of rock in the Land of Wind and Shade, the setting Sburb had prepared for their personal quest. Their Dad is kidnapped upon entering the game; consequently, their only guide in the Medium at first is Nannasprite and Wayward Vagabond's voice in their head. Their house is also overrun by Shale Imps. After messing around in their house fighting imps and ogres for a while, John the first Gate, sending them to the surface of LOWAS. They their land and begins talking to some trolls. Terezi is able to into attempting to fight their denizen long before they were ready, and this creates an alternate timeline where John is killed. Dave eventually travels back in time and stops them. The John who died in that timeline later deceased Vriska in a dream bubble, and they date each other for a time before breaking up. This John was eventually obliterated by . .]] Despite Terezi deceiving them, they decide to trust her again, and which led to Rose's house. Rose is asleep at the time, so they take her birthday gift to them: a bunny similar to the one they got from Dave. Tired of waiting for her to awaken, they leave to explore the Land of Light and Rain and with a transportalizer, which leads to The Veil. Here they do some ectobiology, , including themselves, as paradox clones and giving them gifts. Initially John's dream self has mostly been asleep, with only brief glimpses of waking up and sleepwalking. This changes when Jack Noir begins The Reckoning and , causing the moon to come crashing out of orbit. Dream Jade attempts to wake John before sacrificing herself to save them from certain death. Dream John awakens after the celestial collision and face down on Skaia's Battlefield. They take the White Queen's ring from Jade and foresee their destination in the clouds. Meanwhile their other self, sleeping in the Veil, is saved by an Authority Regulator of Derse. On the Battlefield they from Jade by a Parcel Mistress, which was the same bunny as their other presents, but this time enhanced with cybernetic upgrades. They are confronted by Jack Noir, who assumes the bunny would continue to help them, but this was a mistake. Jack flees leaving John to wander the Battlefield. Soon they their Dad and Mom, but before reuniting with them John is awakened by Vriska's powers and loses the Queen's ring. They become friends with Vriska whom gives them advice to what they were going to do anyway; all part of her paradoxical efforts to be the guiding hand behind Jack Noir's ascension and eventual (at least in her mind) defeat. John retrieves their server copy of Sburb to connect to Jade, however they are put back to sleep by Vriska before prototyping her kernel. Later they are seen in mortal danger, as Jack Noir was using his new first guardian powers to destroy LOWAS with green fire. With WV's help they to do The Windy Thing, putting out the fire on LOWAS. Later on the advice of Vriska they go to sleep on their Quest Bed and are by Jack Noir, with their dreamself ascending to god tier. John travels through Skaia in their new form with the Wizardly Vassal and drills the planet to retrieve The Tumor. They come across the Courtyard Droll who had been carrying Liv Tyler with him, getting its Warhammer of Zillyhoo. They send Liv, CD? and WV? to Derse to drop off the Tumor at the moon and gives their wallet to WV?, forgetting it carried their Crosbytop where Jade messages them later about . John finds a grimdark Rose descending to the castle where her mother and John's father were slain. They reunite and Rose tries to explain the situation but could only speak in eldritch tongues. Rose leads John to the top of the castle where their parents laid and , but as their strife began Jack immediately stabbed John. Due to their death being neither just nor heroic, they come back to life later only to discover a dead Rose. Following Vriska's advice they kiss Rose, allowing her dream self to survive. Then following Karkat's orders John goes to the Land of Heat and Clockwork. It is here that Karkat first trolled John from his perspective . Future Karkat explains how to initiate the scratch which John . Later they are transported to Jade, who had just acquired god tier, and observes as Jade fulfilles Echidna's request traveling to a new session through the Fourth wall. Crossing the Yellow Yard As they begin to cross the Yellow Yard on a Prospitian battleship Jade the journey to the post-scratch session will take three years. She of sending them to the trolls' meteor so they can spend the next years with Dave, Rose and the trolls but they decline since Jade can't accompany them and they don't want to abandon her. Instead, they send to the meteor crew. Later they encounter Bec Noir and initiate a brief fight where John scores a hit on a distraught Jack before he flees. Wandering through a desert they find a gold ring in the sand, which they pick up. Tavros claims that the ring is his, but their ownership dispute is broken up by Vriska's arrival. Vriska informs John about the existence of along with the various plans being proposed to try and stop him from destroying reality. John expresses interest in helping her but is forced awake by another troll. The ring somehow leaves the dream bubbles with them and is still in their hand. While the ship makes it to the new session John is asleep and Vriska and Tavros again along with other dead trolls. After they enter a skull cave (which looks surprisingly similar to a cherub skull) and find the treasure, John . Throughout past panels of Homestuck John's arm appears many times. Eventually their dream projection disappears and their waking self begins teleporting wildly throughout many other panels. Eventually they end up on LOMAX and wander around, later with the meteor crew (except Gamzee) . Jade then appears, brainwashed by the Condesce, and begins to beat them up, at which point they once again disappear. They realize that they had become unstuck in existence from sticking their hand in the treasure. Using a combination of wind powers and their new random teleporting, they begin to elude Jade. They appear on LOHAC, LOFAF and LOLAR and have a conversation with Rose and Terezi. After telling them what happened before they were separated, they say to believe they may now be able to change established events on the alpha timeline. They eventually end up in the middle of Dave and Jade's conversations and Dave tells John he can feel they're changing the alpha timeline, due to his instincts as a Hero of Time. This conversation is averted when John's future self appears and takes John away before Dave notices them, sending them away to find Roxy. In Derse Roxy mentions Calliope and how they're a ghost in danger of being destroyed by . John suggests using their ring to bring Calliope back, but upon returning to the Prospitian ship finds that the ring is missing. They once again zap away and finds themselves in Caliborn's Homosuck drawings which they are disturbed by. They go through a series of misadventures in the story and eventually are zapped out to Caliborn's room, where they quickly piece together that he is behind the horrific comic. The two fight each other, John promptly giving Caliborn a thorough beating before they are zapped away once more, leaving a horrified, bloodied Caliborn behind. Back to the B2 session they find themself in the aftermath of a catastrophic massacre. While searching for answers as to what exactly happened they stumble across a Dirk Strider being consumed by disordered glitches and later a still-alive Roxy cradling the body of Rose. They catch up with them on LOPAN and stands by as Rose speaks her final words before dying. The two discuss how terrible their current circumstances are and get interrupted when a wounded Terezi crash lands into the planet, walks over to John and headbutts them, demanding that they . The three decide the best chance they have at fixing the current situation is for John to get a handle on their canon-altering powers and seek the aid of Typheus. John encourages Roxy to also go see her denizen. In Typheus's palace John finds him at the planet's core and is accepts the Choice, with Typheus opening the pipes leading to the core causing the oil start flooding the chamber, submerging John and thus preventing them from turning into the breeze to escape. John comes up with a smart option for the quest: zapping away the oil and spread it throughout reality. They play the pipe organ in Typheus's palace, thereby completing their quest to free the fireflies and knocking the A6A6 cartridge out. LOWAS is teleported somewhere which appears to be outside of the story. Exploring their land they come across Roxy, and they discuss the similar Choices they were given. John uses their now-controllable powers to go back to the time when they, Terezi, and Roxy were talking on LOPAN. John tells their past alternative self to go see Typheus while they and Terezi work out a plan. She writes instructions on her scarf in her own blood, giving John key terms from her memory to zap to those points in her timeline and make subtle changes that would ultimately result in a better outcome. Along other things they retrieve the ring of life before Gamzee could find it and knock out Vriska before Terezi could kill her. After a short conversation with the trolls John decides they have "messed enough of this timeline" and zap away. They go to their own timeline to zap Roxy and their planet into the new timeline and they arrive on the victory platform where everyone else stands. After some chatting Vriska lets everyone decide who will take on which villain and they go with Rose and Roxy to fight the Condesce. The Condesce eventually overpowers the kids, however Roxy is able to stealth impale her, ending the fight. John is seen exploring the new world created after Act 7, and notably celebrating their birthdays with their friends, who grow more and more distant with time. John eventually gets a challenge from Caliborn which they accept. It is implied this leads to the events shown in Caliborn's Masterpiece. Caliborn's Masterpiece Years in the future but not many, John uses their retcon powers to confront Caliborn along with the Homestuck Kids, but they and the beta kids are sucked into Caliborn's House-shaped juju, supposedly trapped forever. It is implied that they are released when Vriska unleashes the juju at during the events of Act 7. New Timeline The John native to the post-retcon timeline was on their version of LOWAS when it exploded in the three-year trip due to pre-retcon John's Choice, and presumably died a heroic death. Personality and Traits John's physical appearance could be described as a kid with black messy hair. They have an obvious nerdy look about them, a trait inherited from their ectobiological mother. Their outfit has a picture of what appears to be Slimer from Ghostbusters but is in fact a Japanese knock-off. John's interests are movies (especially Con Air), web comics, and video games. They enjoy paranormal lore and magic tricks, the latter of which they also perform. They own a computer and likes to make programs, no matter how bad they may be. They also have a long-standing hatred of the brand Betty Crocker and can play the piano quite well. Their room has various items to support their hobbies, such as a Magic Chest filled with trick objects. Their walls are littered with posters of movies, web comics, and video games. Notably, their collection of items when colored are typically green, but John associates themself with the color blue. John tends to be a bit of a goofball, making bad jokes and using off-beat humor and subtle irony. They have a typical nerd nature in that they are very passive and follow commands more easily than the others, complying with commands not because of their logical sense but because they were told to. Their causes their friends think of them as the leader while they prefer just being their friend. From Dave's description, John is the kind of person who generally does not get emotionally wavered by events that would drive others to the brink, but instead gets riled up and irrationally stubborn over ridiculous minutia, to the amusement or confusion of others. This is proven true on a number of occasions throughout the comic, as they are shown to be their normal self during the some of the more traumatic events of their session, but lose their mind when they briefly lose interest in Con Air. In a sense, they are one of the more innocent characters in the comic. They are more prone to bad ideas than their friends and are made out to be the butt of a lot of jokes when John chats with them through Pesterchum. They also celebrate the birthdays of their friends, sending them gifts. John has a tendency to be given commands about making noises and shitting on things. Fortunately, they haven't complied with any of these, though they often seem to consider them against their better judgement. John is by far one of the most inventive of the main characters; from the beginning, they show more innovative prowess in combining items than any of the others, even before the introduction of the alchemiter; they demonstrate this with their poster-nailing and harlequin-funniness-amplifying abilities. They are the most grounded of the main characters, contrasting Rose's bookish, logical demeanor, Dave's unceasing pursuit of transcendent irony and Jade's air-headed, scatterbrained antics. They are also the kindest - Rose is generally very cold emotionally, Dave is quite willing to put the pursuit of irony before consideration for others, and Jade's ideas of kindness tend to be a bit odd, although not out of actual malice. John proves to be quite generous and spends more time than the others helping their Consorts. This is in special contrast to Rose who actively antagonizes them and intentionally sets about destroying her own planet once she learns their session is null and Dave, who appears to have disregarded them entirely when he wasn't stealing all of their money through the LOHAC Stock Exchange. Their post-scratch self is described by Dirk as being and that . They also have a strong propensity for self-described "HILARIOUS ANTICS", and has all of the points on their Prankster's Gambit. All of them. Although Rose and Dave both frequently take potshots at the quality of they jokes and pranks they appear to have a genuine talent for comedy, as their post-scratch self became a world-famous comedian. Relationships Beta Kids Dave, Rose and Jade are John's best friends, and have been for quite some time. None of their feelings for each other has changed since the session has started, although they do think Rose has gotten "crazier," and has half-jokingly sworn to rescue her from the clutches of evil caused by her commune with the deep ones. John is seen to have a close sibling relationship with Jade, as they have refused to leave her alone and stayed back with her for 3 years straight. John does think that Dave is cool, but only says this between them and Dave as seen in the birthday note they sent him. On multiple occasions, Dave has described the two of them as "best bros." They appear to be nervous about Karkat's idea of them marrying Rose; although John has brought up the shipping grid and marrying Rose on quite a few occasions, despite their supposed hesitance. Additionally, around the time of Seer: Descend John began to show multiple signs of having a romantic crush on Rose. Their reactions to Jade asking them if they were "in love with Rose" on also suggest this. However, after meeting her again three years later John no longer behaves this way around her. Roxy Lalonde Mirroring the aforementioned romantic crush John may have had on Rose as well as the relationship between Rose's Mom and Dad Egbert, Roxy's crush on Jake, and even Roxy's crush on Jane's Dad, John and Roxy hit it off upon meeting - John attempts to keep them entertained, and Roxy makes a mental note to mack on John, considering them "possible boyfriend material." When they met again on Roxy's planet after the events of S GAME OVER, John attempted to comfort Roxy. Terezi insisted that their awkward goodbyes displayed . They meet again after John finishes their quest and discuss what to do next in terms of the main plot. After several timeline related shenanigans, Roxy is visibly happy to see John return to LOWAS. John hands the ring of life over to an especially happy Roxy, and they in turn grabs John's hand as they venture onward into what can only be assumed to be even more timeline related shenanigans. John describes Roxy to Dave as and . John also stated that they felt worse for Roxy after the catastrophic events that they witnessed than they felt for themselves. After John tells Dave about their experiences with Roxy, Dave notes these highly probable romantic feelings, telling John that , to which John responds . In S ACT 7 they are seen walking together with Roxy and Calliope. Jake English John quickly develops a friendly relationship with Jake when they meet - they have, among other similarities, a common fondness for movies and similar personalities. John invites Jake to join them, Rose, and Roxy in making plans for dealing with the villains, likely so that they can spend more time with him. John's stated that Jake strikes them as . Karkat Vantas John's relationship with Karkat has sort of become a duo of hate and friendship. John now enjoys all of Karkat's hate filled rants because of the sheer "insane trolling" Karkat is capable of. While not their patron troll, Karkat has trolled them backwards through almost every step of their journey. After he finished his backwards trolling, Karkat's feelings toward John became far less antagonistic, and he has even apologized for all his bad behavior to them and their friends. John considers him their favorite troll. Terezi Pyrope John's talks with Terezi have been strained at best. The first time they talked, Terezi threatened to kill them as a prank, which caused them to change their Pesterchum handle. Later on, they gets involved in Terezi's plot to mess up the timeline, although they constantly antagonized each other. Since Dave has started working together with Terezi, she has stopped talking to John for the most part, as Vriska became their new patron troll. Having met up after the bloodbath on LOFAF, the two of them began scheming to use John's powers to . Although their plot was successful, Terezi and John still appear to be on bad terms, with Terezi calling them a and belittling them, and John thinking that she's been pranking them, also frequently calling her either weird or insane. After John explains to Dave their interactions with Terezi , Karkat insists that John has a caliginous crush on Terezi, although John argues that humans cannot have those kinds of relations. Dave, however, supports Karkat's claim, saying that . John later has mixed feelings about the idea, denying that they are black for her but heavily implying otherwise. It is possible that Terezi returns John's black feelings (or has some sort of other feelings for them), supported when she says to Vriska, }}, and does not finish her sentence. Later, John and Terezi have a conversation which, although we don't get to see what they say, seems to be filled with black flirting and trading insults. When Terezi leaves, John says and then blushes as Roxy looks at them. Kanaya Maryam John has talked to Kanaya twice: first (from John's perspective) months in the past, and second during Sburb through Rose's account. John said she was after their first conversation. Aradia Megido John has twice talked to Aradia since joining Vriska's pirate crew. The first time they were introduced to her they questioned her ghostliness to which she responded with her claim to being alive, and the second time they asked her about her opinions on Vriska's crew's adventure. However, her response, to which John replied , seemed to have . Vriska Serket John's relationship with Vriska is a very complex one. It seems to fluctuate between admiring and disliking her. At first, Vriska decided to help John on their quest as a means of competing with Terezi, who was helping Dave. Vriska was very bossy and a control freak towards John at first, which they found kind of annoying, but they still enjoyed talking with her. Vriska and John's feelings developed deeper: John used more of her typing quirk to please her, Vriska made an outfit for John that she said made them totally hot, and John showed her Nicolas Cage, who became her fangirl crush. However, after Vriska killed Tavros, Vriska opened up more of her feelings than she had with anybody else. She held John's opinion of her in highest respect, fearing that they would be angry with her. She has told John about not only her remorse for killing, but how her views of killing compared to those of troll society, how much she admired humans for being weaker but nicer, and her entire background. Though they were a bit freaked out after hearing that Vriska had murdered twice and killed thousands to feed her Lusus, they didn't seem to think less of her after receiving the shock. John was shown to still care about Vriska's wellbeing afterwards, and Vriska reciprocated these feelings, hoping that John would get strong enough to stop Jack and protect their friends in case she died trying to fight him. Before her death, Vriska asked John out on a date, confirming that Vriska's feelings for John were red after all. John accepted, but Vriska was killed by Terezi, leaving a visibly shaken Karkat to look through their last pesterlog and respond through her account. After switching to his own account, he asked John if they genuinely liked Vriska, upon which John confirmed they did—prompting Karkat to withhold the information of Vriska's death and the specifics of Gamzee's rampage for now to avoid distracting John from the important tasks at hand. During the ride to the new session, John claimed to no longer care much about romance. When Jade asked what this meant about Vriska, they said what they and Vriska talked about, and that is was a bit silly to base a romance on just a day's worth of conversations. John referred to her as , suggesting that they forgot about Vriska somewhat, but when they talk to Meenah a little later, they ask her if she has seen Karkat or Vriska (the only two trolls they really got to know well) around, showing that John does remember her more than their conversations with Jade suggested. They later met Vriska's ghost in dream bubbles twice, and after seeing she was using the other dead trolls' ghosts as bait to defeat , they began to be somewhat disturbed by her, considering her to be dangerous. John confessed to Roxy that they were beginning to think they might actually , and went so far as to call her . However during John's retcon shenanigans, they interfere during Terezi and Vriska's standoff. Per future Terezi's directions, they prevent Vriska's death by punching her in the face, showing no hesitation in punching her nor in preventing her death. Soon afterwards, they do apologize to the unconscious Vriska for punching her, and admits that it will be neat to meet her alive self, showing that their former hatred for her either diminished over time or was vented out in that punch. After arriving in the new timeline with Roxy, John is happy to see Vriska, saying that , and her thought-out plan for taking on all the threats in the session. Gallery John revives.gif|John reviving. Dead Vriska John.gif JohnFarFuture.gif John three years mind fuck.gif John on LOHAC.gif John rocketing up.gif John-Windy Thing.gif|Doing the Windy Thing Homestuck-round-1.png Johndance.gif|John's Victory Dance Trivia *John is the only human kid whose death before ascending to god tier was not by an explosion. *John's title "Heir of Breath" may be a play on "Inherit the Wind" ** John's god tier hood heavily resembles a wind sock. ** Breath may be used interchangeably with air, a homophone of Heir. ** It may also be a play on words of their favorite movie, Con Air (Con Heir). *John may be named for James Dallas Egbert III, a student at Michigan State University who was incorrectly alleged to have disappeared into the school's steam tunnels for reasons related to the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). John's last name may also be a reference to Ebert, the movie critic, which would be connected to their love of movies. You would have to ask Cuttlefish, the user who originally named them on the MSPA forum here to see which or if something completely different. *John has a severe allergy to peanuts, shown . Jake shares this allergy. *John's current screen name, ectoBiologist, has the initials EB which refers to EarthBound, one of the video games that inspired Andrew Hussie to do Homestuck as stated in Book 1 of Homestuck. **They are the only character whose screen name has changed at some point. * Their address (21605 Fir Dr, Maple Valley, Washington) is a real place. * In one of with Dave, the word "white" was changed to "Íæûë€Å" (part of it was removed; it tripped the spam filter with a particular character), until being changed back. * confirms that John has a cowlick. **John's hair was different from until , when they are next seen with their current hair from onwards. * and are a reference to Ghostbusters, where a cart chases a slimer down a hall when provoked by Stantz, where in the panel shows John (Cart) crashing into the wall when holding onto Jade (Stantz), who was following Jaspers (Slimer). When the slimer hit the wall, it revealed a green slime covering it, similar to the pink slime left by Jaspers. **John's ghost slime shirt is a fictional Asian knock-off of the ghost slime from Ghostbusters. More info on that here **They wear black boxers with ghost slimes in ACT 6. *The name "Zoosmell" is a reference to some of Andrew Hussie's older blurbs, named Zoosmells. *Along with Karkat's Sicklekind specibus, John's Hammerkind specibus is symbolic of communism. They were both the leaders of their respective sessions. This was later by Dave. *On the of Homestuck Beta, it says John was born on April 10 and was 10 years old. In the final version of Homestuck, they were born on April 13, and were 13 years old. ** This would have made their original patron troll be Nepeta Leijon instead of Vriska Serket. ***There are only 8 pages in Homestuck Beta, John's patron troll is the eighth sign. This is the possible reason why Andrew Hussie decided to make Homestuck come out on 4/13 instead. *John is depicted on the "XII: the Hanged Man" card, the "XVII: The Star" card with Rose, the "XIX: The Sun" card with WV, and on the "XXI: The World" card with all four B1 kids in the Homestuck Tarot card deck. They can also be seen on the "Five of Wands" card with most of the pre-act 6 cast. *John is the only Beta kid to not have had an alternate self prototyped into a sprite at some point. *Considering Jane Crocker is related to Betty Crocker (a.k.a The Condesce) this would technically mean that John is also related to other members of the Peixes family such as Feferi and Meenah. **John being a Heir of Breath may also be a reference to this, since juvenile fuchsia bloods that are waiting to become the next rulers of Alternia are refereed to as heirs/heiresses. **Both the Breath and Life signs appear to be flipped versions of each other and compliment each other in a way. (In order to be alive you need to breath and vice versa.) John and Jane are both the leaders of their groups and destined to be leaders just like their fuschia blooded relatives. *In the credits during Rose and Kanaya's wedding, you can spot John in Trickster Mode. *Based upon their birthday, aspect, and lunar sway, John's Extended Zodiac sign is Arus, the Wanderer. *'The only "me" I know of is me, are you sure the only "you" you know of is you?' See also *John's house *John's room *John's outfits ru:Джон Эгберт Category:Homestuck Protagonists/Allies Category:Pesterquest characters Category:Humans